1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a game apparatus that executes a video game, in which a battle occurs between a player character and an enemy character. More particularly, the present invention relates to a game apparatus that executes a video game, in which player characters include a temporary character that may temporarily be an operation object of the player and a normal character that becomes the operating object except for a time when the temporary character becomes the operation object.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, it is known that a video game in which a battle occurs between a player character operated in accordance with an operation of a player and an enemy character operated not in accordance with the operation of the player but in accordance with a program executed by a CPU of a game machine in a progress of the game. In such game, a plurality of player characters operated in accordance with the operation of the player may participate in the battle.
In a stand-alone video game where a plurality of players do not participate and the game is progressed by only one player, when a plurality of player characters participate in a battle, it is not possible to know, for which player character, an instruction is input from an input device in accordance with the operation of the player unless only one player character is defined to be an operation object of the player. Accordingly, when the plurality of player characters participate in the battle, a player character to be the operation object of the player is switched.
In this case, as an approach for switching the player character to be the operation object of the player, there is a turn-based approach in which a player character to be the operation object is specified in turn in accordance with a program executed by a CPU. Further, there is an approach in which a predetermined time is set for each player character and a player character becomes the operation object of the player in order, from a player character with the predetermined time elapsed (for example, refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 6-105959 (paragraphs 0002 and 0027)). Furthermore, there is an approach in which a player character to be the operation object is switched in accordance with selection based on an operation of a player (for example, refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2007-244693 (paragraph 0028)).
As the game, in which a battle occurs between a player character and an enemy character in the progress of the game as described above, a roll playing game (RPG) is well known. In many of the RPG's, a plurality of player character can participate in the battle. Even though a plurality of player character can be operated in accordance with the operation of the player, only one character can be specified to be a main character in the RPG in most cases, while a player can select a player character to be a main character from a plurality of characters when starting the game in some cases. This is because one of amusements of the RPG is that a player acts a player character as a main character in the virtual world.
Even though the plurality of player characters are operated in accordance with the operation of the player, when only one player character can be specified to be a main character as described above, a game is generally progressed by an operation for the player character that is the main character in scenes of the game other than the battle. Even in the scenes of the game other than the battle, a party including a plurality of player characters may be operated, however, it is not changed that the player character that is the main character is mainly operated.
In addition, in the conventional RPG's, a portion of a game other than a battle, which is progressed by a player character that is a main character or progressed while the player character is mainly operated, and a portion of a battle, in which a player character to be the operation object is switched, are weakly associated. Therefore, an amusement of a battle with the enemy character while the player character to be the operation object is switched is completed in a single battle, and such amusement cannot be an amusement of the entire progress of the game.